To Connor:
> Although I don't have time to comment on this whole exchange, I do
> feel that I should point out that pace Butler, Foucault, Deleuze,
> the nonessential nonmateriality of the body is by no means equal to
> it being 'just a fantasy.'
I see you are another one of these busy bees. It was not I who
introduced fantasy into the argument but Diane, the person to whom I
was replying.
> Stating 'there is no "reality" that is
> not the fantasy of a certain system' is not a statement that can be
> usefully applied to, at least, Deleuze and Foucault, who consistently
> have worked to destabilize the ideology/reality, fantasy/reality,
> mind/body type dualisms with the analysis of the multiple
> materialities of power.
Again you are attributing views to me which I do not have. It was Diane
that offered these views. Why don't you challenge her?
> To be more specific, your final example of the ideological cold (a
> rhetorical rhinovirus, indeed) implicitly still presumes a
> fantasy/reality distinction--you attempt to place the Butlerian
> position into a Frankfurt-style system/realtiy dichotomy, framing it
> in a colonial discourse where the substrate 'body' is
> overlaid/infected/whatever by the ideological 'cold.' Again, this is
> the wrong brush to be tarring Butler/Foucault/Deleuze with, as this
> is not their argument, *especially* when you take the sort of
> subjectivist voluntaristic position that the cold can be seen to be a
> fantasy of *mine* and not a shared social reality.
Again it is not I who entertain these ideas. I was simply exposing
the blatant absurdity of Diane's rhetoric.
> And I'd like to if possible bring the rhetorical level down a few
> notches. There's a truism on the Internet that trotting out the
> Holocaust/Hitler/Nazis during a discussion is an instant discourse-stopper, a
> 'trump' that tends to render discussion moot. Rather than continuing
> to be a discussion over concepts, discussion tends to get sidetracked
> into arguing over the value of the Holocaust/Hitler/Nazi example and
> whether or not it really applies, etc.
Don't distort what I said. Deal with what I said on this matter. You
go on about "a truism" to which I do not subscribe. This is the "have
you stopped beating your wife ?" sophistry. It is totally
irrelevant to the argument on hand. You are sniffing in the wrong
place Sir.
What I said concerning the Holocaust was a justified means of
exposing Diane's comments as nonsense.
The problem with this kind of mail of yours and Diane's is that it
obstructs the development of debate. It would seem that the list may
be no more than a cosy club for those who share the same
shibolleths.
Karl Carlile
Yours etc.,
Karl
> Although I don't have time to comment on this whole exchange, I do
> feel that I should point out that pace Butler, Foucault, Deleuze,
> the nonessential nonmateriality of the body is by no means equal to
> it being 'just a fantasy.'
I see you are another one of these busy bees. It was not I who
introduced fantasy into the argument but Diane, the person to whom I
was replying.
> Stating 'there is no "reality" that is
> not the fantasy of a certain system' is not a statement that can be
> usefully applied to, at least, Deleuze and Foucault, who consistently
> have worked to destabilize the ideology/reality, fantasy/reality,
> mind/body type dualisms with the analysis of the multiple
> materialities of power.
Again you are attributing views to me which I do not have. It was Diane
that offered these views. Why don't you challenge her?
> To be more specific, your final example of the ideological cold (a
> rhetorical rhinovirus, indeed) implicitly still presumes a
> fantasy/reality distinction--you attempt to place the Butlerian
> position into a Frankfurt-style system/realtiy dichotomy, framing it
> in a colonial discourse where the substrate 'body' is
> overlaid/infected/whatever by the ideological 'cold.' Again, this is
> the wrong brush to be tarring Butler/Foucault/Deleuze with, as this
> is not their argument, *especially* when you take the sort of
> subjectivist voluntaristic position that the cold can be seen to be a
> fantasy of *mine* and not a shared social reality.
Again it is not I who entertain these ideas. I was simply exposing
the blatant absurdity of Diane's rhetoric.
> And I'd like to if possible bring the rhetorical level down a few
> notches. There's a truism on the Internet that trotting out the
> Holocaust/Hitler/Nazis during a discussion is an instant discourse-stopper, a
> 'trump' that tends to render discussion moot. Rather than continuing
> to be a discussion over concepts, discussion tends to get sidetracked
> into arguing over the value of the Holocaust/Hitler/Nazi example and
> whether or not it really applies, etc.
Don't distort what I said. Deal with what I said on this matter. You
go on about "a truism" to which I do not subscribe. This is the "have
you stopped beating your wife ?" sophistry. It is totally
irrelevant to the argument on hand. You are sniffing in the wrong
place Sir.
What I said concerning the Holocaust was a justified means of
exposing Diane's comments as nonsense.
The problem with this kind of mail of yours and Diane's is that it
obstructs the development of debate. It would seem that the list may
be no more than a cosy club for those who share the same
shibolleths.
Karl Carlile
Yours etc.,
Karl